Hope Given

Ok I wasn't planning on writing a blog post tonight; however, when I drink super caffeinated coffee at 5:00pm and no one can understand me anymore because my brain is going so fast, my mouth can't keep up..well then a blog post is definitely in order! 

"Therefore, remember that you, once [were] Gentiles in the flesh...having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ."  Ephesians 2:11a,12b-13

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"Having no hope..."  Hope is a gift.  A gift we can only accept after we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  I had never {seen} this verse before in its whole context.  How incredible, but very much like God, to withold hope until we had been redeemed. When I sit in my psychology class, and listen to the humanistic, mumbo-jumbo views on essentially coming to grips with yourself and finding an inner settledness from deep within {somewhere} it breaks my heart.  I have what the world is looking for.  HOPE  We as humans need something to live for.  In the secular world of psychology, they have come as far as identifying the basic human needs that Christ has instilled in every human; one being hope, another love, the third joy.  To actually close this circle, and {FEEL} these desires fufilled, the desire to hope for something better, the desire to love and feel love, the desire to feel joy and give joy, a person must be brought near by the blood of Christ.  Without the shedding of His blood on the cross, we would have nothing.  There would be no reason to hope because there would be no forgiveness of our sins.  Love would be null because we would not have had a bleeding demonstration of LOVE.  We would have no joy.  Why feel joy when there is no hope and no love?   

In Christ Jesus, hope is born.  Hope is actualized in trusting that HIS promises will hold true.  Do I trust, as Abraham did, that what He promises, He is {able} and WILLING to perform?  Hope is born during the times when we trust in blind obedience.  How can you rest in an unfulfilled promise except through hope?

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"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ..." Ephesians 2:4-5